
Hello dear community!
It's week-end, and time for some more mini madness.

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But let's stay a moment with the Trade Federation. They have several types of well-known capital ships in the fleet. First of all there's the Core Ship which you have seen above in the image. These are spherical and thus difficult to design. On the search for a solution, I ended up with a rock underside. Then there's an octagonal modified plate attached followed by a 3x3 dish. In this assembly the entire construct is perfectly spherical, but with the advantage of being functionalized for the addition of clips via the bars of the modified plate.
Those Core Ships serve as central unit of much larger ships, the so-called Trade Federation Battleships. These are in fact converted Lucrehulk-class transport ships. The Droid Control Ship is another modification but very similar to the Battleships. This model has been completely redesigned and uploaded just recently. To get a massive thick ring, almost the entire craft is built SNOT. In the middle would be the Core Ship, but I didn't use my actual Core Ship Mini because the scale for the Battleship would have been too large for a mini model.
Another popular ship of the fleet served under the name "Invisible Hand" as flagship of the infamous General Grievous during the Battle of Coruscant in the opening scene of "Revenge of the Sith". It's often referred to as Trade Federation Cruiser, but more correct is Providence-class Destroyer. It features all details including hangar shields and a disconnection possibility where the ship breaks apart in the movie.
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Another fraction of the Separatists is the Commerce Guild. They provide two starships to the fleet, among them the Recusant-class Light Destroyer also known as Commerce Guild Destroyer. This ship took we quite a while to realize the angled cockpit, the engines and the greebly guns on the underside. But in the end it turned out nicely. It's a quite lengthy ship, and that's why the mini model is also quite long, but I didn't want to make it more narrow than four studs.
Another ship of the Commerce Guild serves the fleet, but this is actually very rarely seen and quite unknown. It only appears for a few seconds during the Geonosis battle scenes in "Attack of the Clones". It's the half rounded Diamond-class Cruiser. This was actually quite tricky although it looks very simple. It has studs on both upper and under side and required some tricks to turn out symmetrically.
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Another ship, quite oftenly seen, especially in the new Clone Wars TV series, but also during the Battle of Coruscant in "Revenge of the Sith" is from the Banking Clan; the so-called Banking Clan Frigate or more correctly Munificent-class Star Frigate. The frigate has the typical bridge tower layout, but also a very tricky underside featuring much SNOT and the chin-mounted heavy turbolaser cannons. The most difficult part was to get two of them very close to each other without making the construction too thick.
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But there's also the Techno Union. Their vehicle of choice is the Hardcell-class Interstellar Transport. The ship was also used by the Banking Clan. It's one fo these ships getting blasted when Anakin Skywalker orders the gunship captain to fire on the fuel cells during the Battle of Geonosis. This is the third version of this ship I have built. The fuel cells are arranged in a trigonal fashion which is always difficult. My newest version is seen below. Those double TECHNIC Pins with axle hole combined with the triangular TECHNIC hub were the perfect pieces.
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Whew, that was a long story. I hope you enjoyed it. All images are links to their gallery and instructions as usual. Thank you for your time and interest!
~ Yours Christopher
Edited by KimT, 31 January 2010 - 10:31 AM.


























